


all good things must come to an end

by danahscott



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, and martha's resolution to leave the doctor, based on a prompt thing, basically martha and her family dealing with the trauma of the year, idk i don't know how to tag things, uh this is post last of the times lords and pre sontaran stratagem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 23:04:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9262523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danahscott/pseuds/danahscott
Summary: martha and her family after the war, dealing with trauma of the year that never was (short fic)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was for my daily doctor who challenge that I'm doing on ff.net under the same username. :)

It was a Sunday night when Martha almost called him. It was just a moment at the end of a long day at the end of long week that felt like it had gone on forever. It had only been two weeks since he’d dropped her off. It was just a lapse of judgement, that’s all, and for a moment, with her finger hovering over the call button, she almost let it ring. She could have pictured it: he’d be surprised, or quite possibly in the middle of a battle and she’d say, “What do you say, one more trip?” just like he used to say to her.

But then, with a determined sigh, she clicked off her phone, stretching out on her bed. The imprint of the TARDIS was still etched onto her mattress. She shut her eyes until the itch to run faded away. She was still plagued with nightmares. Disjointed images of death and destruction and the planet she loved turning to dust in her hands. The feeling of solitude and loneliness creeping back into her heart, the knowledge that the Doctor, the man she loved, was somewhere being tortured, maybe even dying, and she couldn’t help him until the end. 

She caught her mother staring out the window sometimes, letting the warm dish water run over her hands until they were raw and red, until Martha had to turn it off and watch her mother flinch at her own daughter’s touch. She would always go sit in her room alone for an hour after that. Sometimes Martha could hear her praying. Once, by chance, she heard her mom whisper during one of those times, “I thought I would never see it again. I thought it was gone forever.” And then she looked at Martha, so sadly. Martha didn’t know how to respond.

It was easier and harder with her dad and her brother. She’d call them and make small talk, but they just sounded different. Like there was a weight upon their hearts but they couldn’t be bothered to say it out loud. Most of all, they were scared. True, the family fights had stopped, but part of that was because they never left the house.

Tish was keeping it together, mostly. She had been acting as comfort for the whole family. It was like Martha and her were a task force with the sole mission of making sure everyone was okay. Tish threw herself into baking. She kept buying herself recipe books, each one harder than the last. One day, Martha found her sobbing on the kitchen floor, hands caked in batter, because she just couldn’t get it perfect, and now the eggshell was smashed into the dough and she couldn’t feed it to Dad, because it would kill him, and it would be all her fault. 

And the worst part for Martha was that everything was so foggy. She would start to remember a fond memory of her times with him, but within a matter of minutes, her mind always lead her back to the end, to the misery, and the sadness, and the death. She couldn’t separate it anymore, the travelling and the fighting. The lines were fatally blurred. The whole series of adventures was punctuated by that year, dooming it in her mind as an altogether painful experience, wiping away any of the good. 

And that was why she wanted to call him. To remember that it could be good again, that it could be fun. But she also knew she had to wait, because as soon as she went back to him, it would be “one more trip” until it destroyed her again. One day, she’d be able to try it again, travel with him and be reminded of the good in the universe, but it was going to take time. Martha set her phone down on the nightstand, shut her eyes and prepared for another night of restless sleep.


End file.
